Science Presentations and Learning About Sea Creatures!
Week 2 | By Lucy Iloduba
Today was our penultimate day at Platero Green School! It was our last time seeing some of the students we met last week.
We started the day off strong by watching poster presentations by students in 6th grade. They were tasked with drawing diagrams of the different human body systems, and explained their processes in groups for the class.
We were all very impressed by the level of knowledge the students had at such a young age! Most of us didn’t learn about these topics until secondary school.
The students spoke in Spanish for the most part, but they all tried their best to explain things in English, using dictionaries to translate some of the words.
One student even prepared her portion of the presentation in English in anticipation of our arrival, which we were very grateful for!
We were also very pleasantly surprised when one of the students asked us if we knew what ‘Sláinte’ meant! It took us a second to actually compute what he was saying because we never imagined we’d be hearing Irish all the way over here!
We then sat in on an English class that we’ve had previously. Today, they were learning about daily routines, household chores, and how to say if they liked or disliked something. I even got to read them a comprehension in English, that they then answered questions on. This class is quite advanced in English, and by the end of the lesson, they were learning about family heirlooms!
After break, we ended the day off by teaching some students about sea creatures and their body parts! This was during the natural sciences lesson.
What I find quite unique about Platero Green School, is the fact that the whole school learns about the same topics at the same time, just at different levels. For example, since we’ve been here, the primary students are learning about animals in the sea, while some of the secondary school students are currently working on a research project/presentation about sea contamination caused by cleaning products!
To my understanding, the school rotates certain themes, and then the teachers create lessons for their students based on that. It has been lovely watching the walls in the corridors fill with under-the-sea artwork.
Tomorrow is our last day of work, and I know it will be very hard to say goodbye to everyone we met; both students and teachers. Feeling very thankful for this experience tonight.